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Building Power for Working People

A union is you and your co-workers coming together as a team to make improvements at your workplace.

Union members work together to negotiate and enforce a contract with management that guarantees the things you care about like decent raises, affordable health care, safer workplaces, job security and a stable schedule.

There is a union for every type of career. There are unions for NFL players, lobstermen and sitcom actors, and many other professions. No matter what profession you are in, you deserve to make ends meet, have a good life and plan for the future.

Here are some of the ways you benefit from forming or joining a union:

Better Wages and Benefits

Decent raises, predictable schedules and family-friendly policies don’t just happen without working people coming together and advocating for better workplaces.

When people negotiate together, they gain better wages and benefits.

Working people in unions make improvements at the workplace, and they fight to improve the rights of all people. Union members helped create workplace health and safety standards, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Family Medical Leave Act, increases to minimum wage, workers’ compensation and lots of the other laws you rely on.

Working people ages 16-24 with a union earn a median $616 weekly while young people without a union earn $482.

Collective Bargaining Is the Best Way to Raise Wages

Collective bargaining is the process in which you and your coworkers come together through your unions and negotiate contracts with your employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family and more. Negotiating together is a way to solve workplace problems.

Union Jobs Help Achieve Work-Life Balance

You deserve to make more than just a decent living, you deserve a decent life.

Everyone knows—family comes first. Whether it’s being able send your kids off for their first day of school, or caring for an elderly parent who is ill, being there and providing for family isn’t negotiable.